Like the nearly dozen others lined up along the track, Mulyati, a 50-year-old diabetes patient, has all but given up on doctors and can't afford the expensive medicines they prescribe.

In her mind, she has only one option left: electric therapy.

"I'll keep doing this until I'm completely cured," says Mulyati, twitching visibly as an oncoming passenger train sends an extra rush of current racing through her body.

She leaps from tracks as it approaches and then, after the last car rattles slowly by, climbs back into position.

Pseudo-medical treatments are wildly popular in many parts of Asia - where rumors about those miraculously cured after touching a magic stone can attract hundreds.

That may be especially true in Indonesia, where chronic funding shortages and chaotic decentralization efforts since the 1998 ouster of longtime dictator Suharto have left many disillusioned with the state-sponsored health system, says Marius Widjajarta, chairman of the Indonesian Health Consumers Empowerment Foundation.

Medical experts say there is no evidence lying on the rails does any good.

But Mulyati insists it provides more relief for her symptoms - high-blood pressure, sleeplessness and high cholesterol - than any doctor has since she was first diagnosed with diabetes 13 years ago.

She turned to train-track therapy last year after hearing a rumor about an ethnic Chinese man who was partially paralyzed by a stroke going to the tracks to kill himself, instead, finding himself cured.

Until recently, more than 50 people would show up at the Rawa Buaya tracks every day. But the numbers have dropped since police and the state-run railroad company erected a warning sign and threatened penalties of up to three months in prison or fines of $1,800.

No one has been arrested yet, and none of the participants in train-track therapy has died.

But the dedicated dozen a day who still come say they have no plans to stop.

"They told us not to do it anymore, but what else can I do?" says Hadi Winoto, a 50-year-old stroke victim who has trouble walking.